Hands
by Munday
Summary: Sarah, victor of the Labyrinth, has faced all kinds of hardships in her time. However, this one may be her greatest yet. 'You have no power over me' has never been so true, as Jareth has to learn all he can about the perils of reality if he is help his Sarah flourish again. (summary writing isn't my strongest point)
1. Chapter 1

Rude heels clacked loudly across an invisible floor surrounded by nothing.

 _Clack_

 _Clack_

 _Clack_

All she had done is read a stupid sign on a stupid door

 _Clack_

 _Clack_

 _Clack_

After looking for a dustpan in the cupboard.

 _Clack_

 _Clack_

 _Clack_

But there was another cupboard.

 _Clack._

But what was most out of place wasn't that strange glitch in reality. It was the sign scrawled out in what looked like a child's handwriting.

 _'Please come in'_

Sarah had complied thoughtlessly, and now she stood in what seemed like a blank space in reality.

It was strangely comforting.

No weight of responsibility, no clock ticking for yet another deadline.

 _Light._

That wasn't there before?

A light shone down onto a figure curled up on a chair.

Percussive feet brought her closer to the chair, at a quicker tempo, to gaze upon the spectacle.

He sat slumped, knees drawn to his chest, with thin arms cradling his knees. Bare toes curled around the edge of the seat, knuckles white with desperation, clinging onto the only other item than himself. His legs were dressed in grubby jodpurs, and his arms were draped in ripped billowing sleeves that now clung to his skeletal frame. After following along those arms Sarah's eyes met with mismatched, tired orbs.

They didn't meet her eyes. They only stared off to another world entirely.

"Hel-"

"Why?"

Sarah's initial attempt at breaking the silence was stopped short.

"I'm sorry, wha-"

"Why are things this way? Where is everything? Why am I left behind? Why?"

His head lifted up with sudden strength, disturbing murky blonde tufts of hair which had been sadly cradling his scalp moments before.

His eyes finally bore into Sarah's, and she could almost hear the sounds of the Labyrinth again.

Crap.

After returning home all those years ago, Sarah's imagination had enjoyed its freedom well into her late teens, but as adulthood loomed on her, her passion and creativity had suffered.

Jareth stood suddenly, and with one stride he was within her personal bubble.

"How could you?"

His words, though hushed, cut deep.

He didn't understand.

The stress, the emptiness. Those things didn't exist the same way in the Labyrinth. In reality all Sarah had was a pot of pills and false promises of 'always being there to talk' from office co workers who didn't really care. She didn't belong there, why do you think she walked through an unknown door to what initially seemed like an empty void? At least it reflected how she felt inside for once.

However, the accusation woke up the fiery side in her who hadn't died.

"How could I? Couldn't you try to understand? Whilst you strutted around your goblin palace, things were different for me! If you had taken just a moment of your time to see what was going on, maybe you wouldn't have gotten this way!"

The way she was referring to, she still wasn't all that clear on. Though despite her rage, Sarah had guilt hidden behind it. It was always her fault, how could this be any different?

Her words caught Jareth off guard a little, but he bit back.

"Look, I'm well within my right to have been angry after you left me to stomp back to your pretty little life, but it wasn't long before things began to get strange. Far more strange than my world seems to you. Different things disappeared each day and it escalated so quickly I didn't have time to find out why. Then I ended up here. What happened Sarah? What's wrong? Why did you do this?"

Sarah knew what it was as soon as he explained it. The light in her life faded the same way Jareth's Labyrinth had. He was left with emptiness just like she was. Despite all her work to avoid it, she had still hurt someone else with her illness.

Sarah felt the cold floor embrace her as her knees gave up, leaving her Goblin King to tower over her with eyes full of hurt, worry and confusion.

After what seemed like hours, her voice cracked.

"Jareth, have you ever heard of Depression?"

 **~notes~**

 **Full steam ahead into the first chapter. I haven't allowed for much setting of the the scenage as I wanted things to be as bare and left to the reader as possible. Obviously unanswered questions will be addressed as time goes on, but I hope you like this first chapter. Please leave feedback if you like!**


	2. Chapter 2 - The slump

_Tap_ _Tap_ _Tap_

Fingers on keyboards echoed across what seemed like an empty room, however the percussion was accompanied by a robotic hubub which upon listening, morphed into human voices. A full room of people, and yet it felt so?

 _Empty?_

Sarah's eyes had lost focus for the upteenth time as she gazed at a screen full of numbers and code words. Beside the hand of hers which limply cradled a computer mouse, was a sad mountain of murdered trees. The pages were scrawled with notes in red, but despite the colour, the sparse annotations lacked any passion or depth.

This was life, encased in a grey concrete building. Of course anyone could leave, but all human adults felt compelled to stay to complete the tasks assigned. Living to work, or working to live? Sarah no longer knew as her childish nature lay suffocated, presumed dead.

Printers whirred, coffee makers hissed, yet all still registered as silence between her ears.

But why did Sarah sacrifice herself to office work?

What else can anyone do with a degree deemed 'useless' by a world with more 'economic drive' than sense, and a complete lack of respect for the importance of the arts? Well, the results were clear as day. However, a rocky career path wasn't entirely to blame as a chemical imbalance sought to wreck havoc all the same.

The Labyrinth was yet a distant memory, as were dreams of a career as an actress, or an entertainer. Her imagination, at first, still had its time of freedom when dedicated to social activities outside of work, but as time passed, everything grew all too tiring. Each pass-time slowly dropped off of the schedule as fatigue took over, leaving Sarah isolated, tired and alone.

Home late, the TV gurgled with useless news spat out by presenters with feigned interest. Door keys clattered on the table, shoes kicked were off by the door and an aching body flumped onto a neglected sofa. Sarah's empty eyes pointed themselves at the whirring picture machine in the empty apartment. She still hadn't removed her coat, which was still damp from the drizzle outside. She couldn't feel it, letting her body heat evaporate some of the outside weather which cooled her from the commute home.

There was no patter of little feet, from a pet or some tiny otherworldly beings. Sarah's mind was chained in grey shackles, so not a toe from any Labyrinth creature had a chance to set foot nearby and ease her soul.

This daunting fate not only had an effect on her, however. Her imagination and spirit was what had kept the Labyrinth alive. With each dragging step and clockwork tap on a keyboard, walls crumbled and plants withered in the Labyrinth. The goblins were starving, and the bog of eternal stench smelled only half as bad. Hoggle couldn't even find a way through to Sarah either, which only panicked him more.

"This can't be it... What is going wrong? What's up with the Labyrinth and why can't I talk to Sarah?" Hoggle mumbled to himself as he paced from wall to wall of his creaky shack.

Jareth could only ponder too, as his world fell down, oblivious as Sarah's world fell down with it.

 **~notes~**

 **-edit- having some issues with spacing at the moment, please imagine the first three words as the same set up as the words 'clack' in the first chapter,** **sorry.-**

 **Thank you for bearing with me! I dont have much of a schedule for upload as that tends to murder my creative juices, but I will do my best to update as and when I can. Please feel free to leave any thoughts if you would like and thank you to those who are following, I'm super flattered.**


	3. Chapter 3 - As the World Falls Down

_Thwack_ _Thwack_ _Thwack_

For many, grumpiness was a passing feeling. For Jareth however, it was an almost constant state of being.

The goblins quaking in the throne room had lost count of how many times a face or rear had come into contact with those dusty leather boots, which proudly sat on crossed legs, as Jareth slouched on his grubby throne, slapping his riding crop on the armrest. He still had a lot of remaining bitterness from that bloody girl who had conquered his Labyrinth, won, and left him with nothing to show for it but a wounded ego.

However, with the walls falling down and things disappearing faster than he could lose his temper, his attitude problem masked his worry.

"Just what exactly is going on?" Jareth pondered carefully under his breath.

 _THWACK_

Moments later, the riding crop had been launched across the room and hit a window, leaving a clean shape of the same size behind on the grubby window. Through that small slither of clear glass, it was already easy to see that what looked like half of the entire Labyrinth was missing.

"This must be that bloody Sarah's fault too" he spat, as he stood quickly and marched to the same window.

Rubbing away at the dust with a leather covered hand, he peered at the same sorry sight. He had only stood there a couple of moments, and yet in that time, another wall had fallen, then disappeared entirely.

No one knew why either.

He had hastily called upon everyone he could think of, including his parents, to see why his kingdom was falling apart, and yet no one had any answers. A curse? There wasn't one. Was he ill? Besides a stinking attitude he was fit as anything. He didn't know how long he had left to figure out what was wrong, which made the situation all the direr.

He had no idea how much time had passed, but his idle thinking was interrupted by the urgent tapping of small feet, too big to be goblin feet.

"Your Highness!" Hoggle wheezed, stopping a few feet away from the man in question.

Startled out of his trance, Jareth shifted to his default.

"What, Higgle!" he snapped.

The dwarf sighed a little at the usual mistake but quickly moved to the crisis at hand, as it was far more important.

"I-er, I don't want to alarm you too much, uh, but it's more than just the Labyrinth that's dissapearin' now. I ain't seen Sir Didymus for days, same with Ludo, and the goblin population is dwindlin' quicker than, well, a lot of things yer see." Hoggle rubbed together his clasped and calloused hands, an anxious tick of his, and looked up at Jareth. He feared the usual backlash he tended to face as the bearer of usually less worrying bad news, but this time he feared for his life more than anything.

Hearing the truth spoken to him startled and shook Jareth more than anything he'd seen since it had all started. Seeing it all happen in front of him with no word from anyone involved made it seem like a bad dream, but hearing it all from Hoggle brought him right back to his own sort of reality, which seemed to have a far shorter shelf life than he had ever imagined.

He eventually sent Hoggle away with words he hoped would serve as some sort of comfort, but no one was particularly convinced. The view from the window only sought to make that blindingly clear, so he retreated to the library.

Sleep had been something Jareth had indulged in from time to time, even though he kind had never particularly needed it. However with his very world crumbling around him and his subjects disappearing at an alarming rate, this indulgence had become a distant memory. His thoughts whirred louder with each tick of each set of thirteen hours and he'd lost track of how many sleepless hours had passed. He couldn't show it though, he had to be strong, uncaring, and aloof. But he'd always cared more than he wanted to let on.

He'd watched endless challengers grow as people as they struggled through his labyrinth. Every one of them could loudly proclaim that they had been tricked by a horrible fae who cared for no one other than himself, but those twists and turns, those challenges and lucky breaks had been set out by that nasty king who had to stay so full of anger and contempt. Each challenger, successful or otherwise had always taken part of him with them, along with a lesson that would help them progress back in the above ground. However, the more he thought about it, Jareth had noticed that Sarah had been different. Rather than a piece of him, she had sailed through and taken everything. Yes, the labyrinth stayed and so did his throne, but something felt different. She had taken something big enough to stab at his ego and make him feel all the more empty than before. She had left a bigger hole as she left, than she did as she had crashed her way through into the underground to begin with.

"It's her, she has to be the reason!" Jareth muttered, running a finger over book spines as he desperately looked for literature which held the answer as to how, and why.

She couldn't be dead, as the Labyrinth was still her, albeit in pieces, but still here. But things were still getting worse.

Jareth could no longer see a kingdom outside of his palace. He couldn't quite describe exactly what had taken its place, but it was enough to stir panic, and crack the protective, uncaring shell he'd kept up until that point.

Jareth desperately grabbed at books, throwing them onto the table and slamming himself down into a chair to snatch at the pages.

However as he tried to move frantically, his body began to lose its ability to move. His legs felt like jelly as he tried to stand and crane over the mass of books across the table, he could only fall back into the chair. So scared, yet so tired, he clung to consciousness as his shaking fingers reached to grab at the book pages. Everything was going, where? Why? Why was he so tired and limp?

"H-Hoggle??" Jareth weakly called out as he felt his body slump to the side, resting on the arm of the chair.

"S-Sa-Sarah" he managed with a mumble. He resigned himself to the crushing force of unconsciousness, and closed his eyes.

 **~notes~** **I'm on a bit of a roll at the moment. Writing is serving as a nice before bed activity! I'm having the same issue with spacing as before so please bear with me. It's a bit unfortunate that this kind of bug would only impact this kind of... whatever I'm doing with each chapter... but I guess, armed with a little imagination, its not so bad! I apologise all the same, and hope you are enjoying the story so far!**


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